Hellmuth has much more problematic poker buddies than this, starting with the entire UB crew. Matusow is just a guy who has no self awareness and no clue how to manage life; I don't think he's actively evil like people such as Annie Duke or Greg Pierson.

Matusow is actively EVIL !

Check out his Twitter and his YouTube Podcast to see for yourself.

Matusow is as scummy as they come.

Care to be specific?

He got the only interview with Postle, which would have been incredibly useful to the defense, had that idiotic lawsuit gone forward.

Mike let Postle just rant for 2 hours, and appeared sympathetic, so it kept going.

He played it perfectly, and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't understand the situation well.

Dude, Mike isn’t that smart

Trust me, he knew what he was doing.

There's a reason he got the only interview. The point is to get the subject of interest talking.

As soon as I heard the interview, I knew exactly what was going on, and a lot of people in poker yelling at Matusow didn't get it.

Some of these TV pros were whales. Others were egotists who were unrealistic about their skill and probably playing too high. For example Matusow and Annie Duke. Those and others had strong and sometimes obnoxious personalities which made for good TV. Most professional players are not so demonstrative, because they need to not give off tells, maintain a poker face, etc.

Chip Reese was clearly beating a game for which the entry to a $10K tournament was like 3 big bets, so he did not play them much. Then there are all sorts of mid or mid-high stakes grinders who were winning but did not become TV pros.

Ok nice safe take i guess, i highly doubt anyone on here will diasgree with this

Book was better than any poker book I’ve read and it’s not even close

+1 have time for this flawed human

1 more thing too

Did anyone think Mike & Phil cheated, while really Mike cheated during a hand
when Phil was in the hand with AA vs some guy with AK on a 3 flush board.
Mike blurted out he folded a flush, which was crucial information to Phil's decision.

Phil made the wrong decision, which is how they both seem to justify it anyways.
But that is cheating in my books 100%.

This is on Mike too. Phil did nothing wrong in the hand.

Mike didn't just keep quiet and let him talk. He also spent a lot of time steel manning postles comical explanations. Only a moron would not realize Mike swallowed all the lies up. He is literally operating on 2 brain cells.

I think you are giving him too much credit. He was wasted and any good effects to just let him talk were more by chance than design

Yeah, I saw that. It was deliberate/cheating.

Mike is a Trumptard. That says all you need to know.

Mike is the proverbial 'little brother' IMO. Mom says you have to keep him around and he's constantly looking for big brother's approval (that will probably never come).

IMO there's no doubt that he was ahead of the curve in 'card' games and one of the best readers at the table 'at one time'. But whether it be bankroll or just a plain hard-headed approach to his style he's never impressed the public (or most of his 'peers') at 'playing poker'. A classic spot for this was in a HSP where Mike was in seat 5 and running hot against DNegs. I think he Flopped a set of Queens and got DNegs to commit to the hand .. He blurted out "Now we're playing some poker" at which both Doyle and DNegs made remarks, maybe even Antonio.

His relationship with PHell is interesting. Perhaps one of the few that Phil admits talking strategy with .. or perhaps they are just both good for reinforcing their own ideas, instilling confidence to continue. Phil uses 'white magic', which is just reading (overreading) spots, which Mike is (still) very good at.

There's no doubt Mike's been through some tough physical conditions that last few years .. and potentially the years are catching up with his mind as well.

As far as OP's contention, there's no doubt that Mike has some skeletons in the closet and I don't think he'll ever get in the Hall of Fame by 'standard' vote as there's way too many Players coming of age in the next few years. I'm pretty sure that some sort of arrangement was made with Ted Forrest just to put it to bed (apparently not) and I actually tend to believe that the MP 'interview' had his own interests at heart just as much as 'the other side of the story'. Perhaps he got loaded just so he could make it through? I firmly believe that certain tv/radio guys take a line on a topic just so the viewers click/call in attacks .. generating a buzz.

I've had 4-5 interactions with Mike at WSOP and have nothing negative to say about them .. except that one time he almost ran me over in the scooter without so much as a 'sorry'. He genuinely loves the games and thrives on the interactions with just a bit (way to much) 'Entitlement Tilt' based on his ability/timing to be involved with some of Poker's highest circles, right or wrong. GL

It seems to me that after Full Tilt was gone Matusow turned into a huge nit. Probably because even though he was down on the totem pole of players getting free money from that corrupt site every month, I believe I read he was pulling down 80k a month. He was obviously upset he wasn't getting a whole lot more but that's a different discussion.

During the poker boom and online boom Matusow would bluff a lot more. It got known as the 'Matusow blow up' because well he would usually bluff all his chips with almost zero outs. Has anyone seen that in recent years? From the few times I have seen him play on streams or tv he is super super tight. I've said it before though, it's easy or easier to bluff and shove all in with nothing when you have unlimited or lots of free money coming in every month. He doesn't have that anymore, probably gets a small % of himself to play some big tournaments at the WSOP so its funny, that blow up style of play has seemingly disappeared. Hmmmm I wonder why.

Despite zero ability to pass a Biology 101 class, Mike is an infectious disease specialist.

Mike knows more about infectious diseases and vaccines than Dr. Joe Rogan does.

I was kind of joking, but you may have missed the point I was trying to make.

Then again, Mikey clearly has and always has had serious mental issues as do many of the original "Superstars" of Poker.

It took at shady company to ever touch somebody like him, and it took a certain level of delusion to not be happy earning $80,000 per month when you had very little to offer.

Just think about it, this guy could have made millions and millions for himself if he wasn't such a massive degenerate. Hell, he even stumbled into a second MASSIVE opportunity by buying BTC early. God bless America.

He is part of the old Tilt Crew who got paid out of players' monies along with a few others when poker was good.

Take a look at the list of others from FT back in the day prior to Black Friday and see how many of them have been called out on monies....lol


It's an absolute shame American's can't play.....Mike, along with the other degens that you curse were great players, they all on the dark side of variance imo.

That was a good laugh, thanks for sharing it lol.

thanks for the laughs

LOL he probably ingested horse dewormer by the gallon!

What health issues and mental issues does Mike Matusow struggle with?

Look at Matt Berkey. He's definitely losing to any decent pro yet admits to getting staked for the highest stakes cash games (as shown on youtube etc).

Lynne Ji has admitted on her youtube channel that she gets alot of $ from her parents. She has also admitted on youtube that her family is wealthy. Also she's in her early 20s or so (she mentioned her age before). She punted off $150k to Tom dwan by back 4bet jamming QThh and losing to QQ.

A bit after Black Friday I remember it went public that Matusow had 1.5~m debt to FTP...

Matusow's response was he wasn't paid enough by FTP, despite making crazy money from FTP haha..
Playing the victim, and nothing has changed in him 10 years since..